Tag / apple

I recently bought a new Macbook Pro. The new Thunderbolt port wasn’t a feature that had me excited. The only reason was I had no idea how fast it was. I was listening to Andy Ihnatko speak on the Macbreak Weekly podcast and in passing he mentioned it was 15 times faster than Firewire 800. It’s so fast it’s similar to having a PCI card or chip directly inserted into the motherboard of your computer. I know we don’t need more power but now I am looking forward to a new UAD, RME and large external SSD all with Thunderbolt.

“Thunderbolt I/O technology gives you two channels on the same connector with 10 Gbps of throughput in both directions.” – apple.com

For some reason I should be more excited about the Mac App Store than I am right? I thought it was strange that it’s not integrated into iTunes. I looked for Mac apps there for 10 minutes before I figured out the new store launched from the Apple menu or dock. In a way I’m happy about that because iTunes is way too clunky already but the new Mac App Store’s home is inconsistant. Ok getting past that… the desktop SoundCloud app is the launch winner as far as music stuff goes. It’s nice, new and makes sense for some although I think I will simply keep using the website. The only music software I download after the big one (Ableton) are plug-ins and those are a no go so… I bought the update to iMovie which is the only thing I wanted out of new iLife. It’s a start.

“You can browse Mac apps by category, such as games, productivity, music, and more. Or do a quick search for something specific. Read developer descriptions and user reviews. Flip through screenshots. When you find an app you like, click to buy it.” – apple.com/mac/app-store/

Derek Sivers is the man who created CD Baby. He posted an interesting article on his blog on some of what went on behind the scenes as Steve Jobs created iTunes. It shows another case of music industry battle. I think we are lucky that Tunecore was able to strike and promote a good way to get Independent music into the iTunes music store. I know there are other ways in but imagine if underground artists were locked out.

“I decided to refund everybody’s $40, with my deepest apologies. With 5000 musicians signed up, that meant I was refunding $200,000. Since we couldn’t promise anything, I couldn’t charge money in good conscience.” – sivers.org

This week Peter Kirn of Create Digital Music posted a great article on the upcoming full MIdi support in iOS 4.2. We are getting “WiFi Midi” which appears to be an Apple proprietary system for Apple devices to communicate wirelessly and official USB Midi support via the iPad Camera Connection Kit (Amazon link). It seems we will enter the next phase of music software and hardware on iOS devices once developers have the new Core MIDI goodness in their hands for a while. Is my Atari ST jealous yet? Read the full article on CDM here: createdigitalmusic.com/on-ipad-midi

“In iOS 4.2, best known for leveling the playing field between Apple’s handhelds and tablet, you’ll get full-blown MIDI support. It was clear in leaked details from earlier releases that Apple’s Core MIDI framework was finding new life on the mobile OS, but not directly what that would mean for hardware. Now, the hardware picture is clear.” – Peter Kirn

So as usual Apple has released a bunch of new items and previewed some tasty things. I like the new Macbook Air in theory but until they get a bit more quick they are useless as live show machines. Facetime in OSX is a no brainer if you have an iPhone 4 and a spouse at home. iLife 11 seems to be just a minor feature bump. It’s still killer software that makes all Macs even nicer especially considering the price. With regards to this blog any music instruction is good so if you get a copy please watch a few piano lessons in Garage Band ok? Lion is what has me happy. The new Mac App store is going to be great and bringing much of the iOS stuff into OSX is a win. Don’t kid yourself and believe what Steve said today about touch screen Macs. He’s lying through his teeth… they are coming 100%.

“We took our best thinking from Mac OS X and brought it to the iPhone. Then we took our best thinking from the iPhone and brought it to iPad. And now we’re bringing it all back to the Mac with our eighth major release of the world’s most advanced operating system. Mac OS X Lion arrives in summer 2011.” – apple.com

A few days ago Tunecore sent me an email containing an Excel spreadsheet to fill out in order to procure my Apple Ping profile. Last night I received an email from Apple with set up instructions. The process only took a few minutes. I picked my preferred genres, uploaded my photo, typed a two line bio (they can be longer if you like) and picked ten songs I wanted to feature. That last part is interesting because I checked out a few other artist profiles and the hip-hop guys all chose some of their own music while most others picked a selection of music they were listening to. I went the later route to give fans a taste of my influences. All the songs have to be in iTunes and happily even the obscure music I searched for was there. To kick things off I uploaded a few photos from my recent live show and a video from my last show in Malta. The only real downer is when I went to find artists and people to follow I discovered most of the bands I like don’t have profiles yet. If you are on Ping please friend me there and let me know if there is anyone interesting you are following.

“True fans know it all: What their favorite artists are playing — and when and where they’re playing it. Set your inner groupie free by following your favorite artists on Ping.” – Apple.com

As a musician the word to describe how I feel about the new Apple Ping social network is: exhausted. Musicians have become the tech industries guinea pigs. Why not? We try anything and work cheap right? After creating and curating profiles on MySpace, Last.fm, Imeem, Facebook and then Facebook Fan Pages and on and on now it’s time for Ping. Of course most musicians I know won’t be able to create and artist page yet will they? At this point in time indie artists will have to create normal user profiles and watch the Lady Gaga’s get all the love. As an Apple fanboy I’ll download iTunes 10, create my profile, share it with the world and friend a bunch of people I don’t know. Let’s hope the new network really does help music discovery.

“Follow your favorite artists with a click and become part of their inner circle. Get in on the action with artist photos and status updates. Even add comments to join the conversation. Find out what music an artist likes and pick up a few recommendations. Ping is built into the iTunes app on iPhone and iPod touch. So you can see artist updates from anywhere.” – apple.com/itunes/ping/

I know just another iPad synth demo. But this one is uber Liquid Skyesque therefore it gets a post. Every Wednesday in the middle of hardcore Left Brain thinking it’s good to get a shot of the weird. There’s no reason to be all spreadsheet for five days!

I’m waiting for the 3g model but the press seems to think we have a winner (duh!). Evernote on the iPad is going to be a killer App for me at my day job. If the Netflix rumor is true then yipeee: click here. Music Apps on this thing will be amazing. Ableton are you making an iPhone App too?